Why I don't own a gun (WARNING: DISTURBING)

This is Rocky. He was brought into a rural county animal shelter by a woman who laughed when she said that he hadn't seen a vet in over a year and who apparently felt that the stench of infection coming from his fly-infested face and ears was normal. If I was a gun owner who carried a weapon, I might well have pulled my gun and sent the bitch straight to hell where she belongs. It may be the Great Dog's prerogative to send her to hell, but I could have got her to the gates.

She is probably some one's mother and grandmother and their entire inbred clan of cretins would have appeared on local television for their 15 minutes of fame wailing about what a good christian woman "mama" was.

Rocky has no hair on his chest or belly. He has deep and wide lacerations on his face and neck. His ear canals are fused completely closed. Rocky is the result of a breeder who breeds and sells dogs indiscriminately, and maybe even felt that the puppy he sold would have a good home because he was going to live in the country with a houseful of children.

The rural puppy mills run by Amish and Mennonite families in the Shenandoah Valley as a cash crop could well have been the birthplace of Rocky, or any other white trash family in rural VA trying to make a buck off their dog.



I don't yet know if Rocky is deaf or if that condition will be permanent. What is amazing is that this dog still loves people. He's full of kisses for everyone and he seemed to know that I was trying to help him when I was bathing him this afternoon so he could come upstairs to a crate in my office. I hope and expect that the ACOs will be pursuing criminal charges. In any event, that nightmare is behind him and I hope Rocky's life story will have a happier ending.